//------------------------------//
// In Pain Or Ecstacy 
// Story: The Lightning In Your Teeth 
// by Meridian Prime 
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As Luna stepped into Daybreaker’s world for the second time, she could not help but note once more what a striking figure she cut. The night princess had been able to pinpoint her entrance this time, appearing behind Daybreaker once more, rather than in the middle of the desert. The larger alicorn turned, a look of pleased surprise on her face.

“I did not expect you to actually return.”

Standing taller than any other pony, Celestia had always seemed intimidating at first glance, a fact she attempted to counter with the warm, almost motherly persona she had developed in public. Daybreaker, however, made no such pretense—rather, she seemed to revel in her stature, holding her body up with utterly regal poise and bearing. The spiked, molten armour, fierce red-gold eyes and constantly flaming hair only added to her intimidating aura. 

“It seems we are both full of surprises, then.” Luna replied evenly. “I did not expect you to see the Nightmare in such dim light, and hold no grudge against myself.”

“Ah, I see,” the pale alicorn smirked, “come to ask more questions have you? You must be quite starved for company if you must come to me for conversation.”

Luna sneered. “Hardly!” she snapped, eyes narrowing at the burning mare, “You may have led me on with pretty lies when last we spoke, but I am no fool. You have no reason to tolerate me, save your own freedom. If you think that I might be tricked or manipulated into freeing you, you had best save your breath—waste it on this wasteland of your making!”

By the time Luna had finished talking, Daybreaker’s smile was gone. In its place was a face so utterly inscrutable that Luna could not help but feel the slightest bit uneasy. She was in no true danger, but her foe’s admittedly fearsome appearance, when combined with the fangs, came off as disturbingly predatory—for an instant she wondered is she had looked half so frightening, before the other mare spoke and her attention snapped back to her.

“Is that what you think? Hah. Still so foolish, little moon.”

Luna bristled, the old nickname feeling mocking in the mouth of her sister’s shadow—but the alicorn’s face was still deadly serious.

“Have you not wondered why your sister was so insistent that you not meet me?”

Luna froze.

The larger mare could not have asked a worse question. For while she had not expected to find out directly, or even tonight, that was exactly the mystery that plagued her still, and somehow Daybreaker knew.

For a while, there was no sound but the constant, dull roar of Daybreaker’s mane, and the swell of the ocean. Neither alicorn broke eye contact.

To Luna’s surprise, it was Daybreaker that broke first. With a sigh, the taller mare looked to the sky.

“I can empathise with Discord, a little.”

Luna frowned. As much of a bad habit as this was, it seemed that being thrown off by Daybreaker was becoming a worse one, and far more imperative to break.

“In Celestia’s memories,” she continued, ignoring the smaller mare, “he is a tyrant. The mad god. But you know, I get it.” She tilted her head slightly, gaze sliding down to Luna. “Why he made Equestria his playground. Why he toyed with your subjects’ lives.” She leaned down abruptly, looming over the Princess of the Moon, lips pulling back into a sharp-toothed, jagged grin, a mad light dancing in her eyes.

“Because it’s so damned fun.”

Eyes widening, Luna held her ground, but barely kept herself from taking a step back as the grinning mare advanced on her, sparks flying from her mane to land near Luna’s hooves.

“Watching all the stupid, mortal little ponies run around like ants, without half a brain between them, it gets so boring.” She stalked around the smaller alicorn, who turned with her, horn lit and wings ready to snap open at a moments notice. “So predictable. And sometimes, just sometimes, in those memories…”

She paused, left hoof held high, grin still unnaturally wide, caught in the burning glow of the eternal sun. Luna’s breathing paused with her.

Then the hoof came down, and Luna found her vision full of sparks and burning eyes once more.

“...it’s so damn tempting to just let them all burn.”

Snapping back to reality with a gasp, Luna cast herself backwards with a single, strong wingbeat, landing a few metres away from the larger pony, but Daybreaker did not follow. Her maddened grin had settled back into a self-satisfied smirk, and watched with amusement as Luna twitched, waiting for an attack that never came—before finally landing the crippling blow.

“Those are not my memories, little Luna. They are hers.”

For a moment, Luna seemed more statue than mare.

“You lie,” she croaked hoarsely, trembling with some emotion that she dared not name. Daybreaker grinned, fangs once more on full display.

“Do I?” she questioned mockingly, “Do I really?” She sat back on her haunches, as she had before, but there was nothing relaxed about the situation now—and for all that she seemed at ease, she looked like a coiled spring to the shaken Princess of the Night.

“Tell me Luna, why do you think dear old Celly didn’t want you to meet me? Hmm?” Cocking her head to the side, Daybreaker’s slowly spreading smile was snake-like.

“Maybe she didn’t trust you? Or perhaps she feared you would discover her own grudges against you?” Anywhere else, anypony else and Luna would have held her composure, but against this twisted mockery of her sister she could not help but flinch. Daybreaker laughed with delight.

“Ahah, so it’s that then?” she shook her head, saccharine, false pity dripping from her expression, “You poor, naive little mare. Do you truly think Celestia’s great demon is her hatred of you?” Daybreaker stood again, beginning to walk leisurely towards the shaking blue alicorn, “I’m afraid that’s your insecurity talking, my dear. No, Celestia doesn’t fear you.” She stopped, her muzzle again a hair's breadth away from Luna’s face. She could feel her breath, like desert wind against her face, almost scalding. Feel the ever-present sparks from her mane singe her own, wispy locks. And yet she could not move, rooted to the spot by her gaze.

“She fears herself.” Daybreaker’s lip curled derisively. “Isn’t that just pathetic?”

Somehow, she found the strength to respond. “That’s not true!” she choked out, gritting her teeth and fighting the urge to flee from the knowledge she had sought but desperately did not want. “My sister is not a being of self-loathing! I have learned not to listen to demons like you! I will not bend to your manipulations, and I will not judge my sister for your hatred!” She was snarling by the end of it, muzzle pressed against Daybreaker’s own. The heat was almost searing, but her own rage kept pushing her against the taller mare.

In contrast, Daybreaker’s crazed grin seemed to have grown wider than before, her delighted eyes fixed on Luna’s.

“Oh, sweetie.” she crooned, “You are just adorable.”

And she kissed her.

For a moment, Luna could not understand what had happened. All she knew was that her world was filled with an almost unbearable heat, dangerous and destructive, and yet full of raging, untamed life. Had she been feeling more poetic, she might have said that it felt like a planet forming.

And then the heat pulled away, and reality came crashing back in as she was left gasping for breath. She goggled in dazed, horrified disbelief at the other mare, who only grinned, licking a strand of stray saliva from her lips.

“I told you, dear Luna—I don’t hate you. Quite the opposite.”

“You, What—,” Luna sputtered, scrabbling desperately to find some mental equilibrium, “What did you just do? Why!?”

The pale alicorn chuckled, but otherwise ignored her.

“Your sister doesn't hate herself. Nor does she hate you. No, she fears me because I am who she could be if she just stopped being such a goody little four-shoes.” she sneered. The effect should have been ruined by the gleeful grin that still danced around her muzzle, but to Luna it only added to the uncanny horror of the situation. Daybreaker settled back once again, this time only inches from the disoriented, reeling princess.

“Shall I tell you, Princess, what finally broke the Day?”





A thousand years is a long time. A thousand years of ruling is longer. A ruler is not a real pony, you see—they cannot be. They must be aloof, above, constantly in control. And once you were gone, dear Luna—well, who else was there? It had to be her. Year after year, decade after decade, century after century. No end in sight. Even your promised return did not promise relief, no. Merely another heavy weight on the scale, her country against herself, and always, always having to pick her country.

Is it so strange that the pony your sister once was dreamed of something more? Of freedom? From a life of false smiles and paperwork. From the same day, repeated ad infinitum. From having to be the perfect, pretty, pony princess.

From herself.

From the iron chains of her conscience, the weight of her responsibility, and fragmented remains of her righteous heart that time just kept. Chipping. Away.

Living for herself, and nothing else. Nopony else.

That is what she should have done.

But Celestia is a damn coward.





“She has always been a coward, and she always will be.”

Nothing was stopping Luna from moving. From leaving.

And yet she sat. Transfixed.

“But I am not.”

She did not know how long Daybreaker had spoken for. It could not have been very long. But what she had said…

“And one day, I will win.”

What she had said had torn the blindfold from her eyes.

“Everything will burn, as it should have done so many years ago. And when I rise from the ashes of her kingdom of matchsticks, the cowardice will be gone.”

How could she ever have been so arrogant? To think her sister’s trials her own? To think that in one thousand years alone, Celestia had never come close to the edge?

“And I will be free.”

Tearing herself from her stupor at last, Princess Luna ripped herself from her sister’s world of ash, and fled.